[awm]

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You are North. Partner is on lead against 4♠, and leads the ♦J. You overtake and play a second high diamond, both partner and declarer following (partner had ♦J2 and declarer ♦T3 if it matters). What do you do at trick three? It's matchpoints, not a very strong field. For what it's worth, 3♠ is weak and opponents do not have detailed agreements about preempting style, but you suspect they will be conservative by modern standards.

[akwoo]

Sounds like a weak enough field that most tables will be at 3♠ E/W or even 2♦ N/S, so we'd better try to set the contract.

I voted K♥, but if declarer is a really weak player a top diamond will work better.

In a better field I'm leading a small heart, but here the small chance that declarer's hearts are exactly 432 (so partner has trouble reading my 6) is not worth it.

[apollo1201]

From the OP, AJ 7th S + CK is more likely than same trump suit + HA. So a low H should work fine?

[akwoo]

apollo1201, on 2024-December-01, 06:58, said:

From the OP, AJ 7th S + CK is more likely than same trump suit + HA. So a low H should work fine?

My point was that declarer makes 4S if they have AJ 7th + HA, and it seems in this field there might not be much of a difference between -620 and -650.

In theory, a low heart should work fine, but partner might think we have x xxx AKQxxx Kxx and return a club. Partner shouldn't return a club, because in that situation declarer will discard a club on a heart and we still won't get the CK, but I don't trust most of my partners to figure that out (nor would I always figure that out at the table).